COIN

It was a rainy part of the day, at RVER II, ( River Valley Egg Rally ) in VanBuren Arkansas. The rain wasn't blowing, and the barbeque grills were a' smokin' under the awnings. Some had started a domino game of chicken train in the meeting hall, some were involved in needle work and chatting. Some were just napping.
I had other plans, however. Before leaving for the rally, I had loaded several nearby geocaches into our Magellan GPS. Though we had been very near to one of the geocaches while eating a meal at Rick's Ribs barbeque place, we had not had a chance to look for the cache. I was going to look for the cache in the rain. Everyone seemed to be busy and I had just checked email on the laptop, the time seemed right.
Sitting at the small dinette in our Oliver travel trailer, I turned on the GPS.
When the GPS had "found it's self", it indicated that we were within a foutrh of a mile of the geocache.
Though it was raining, it was a gentle rain and wasn't too chilly. I grabbed the Jeep keys and pocketed the GPS. Dressed lightly wasn't a problem, I didn't even take a rain jacket.
Placing the GPS on the dashboard so I could monitor it, I noted that I was within one eighth of a mile of the cache when crossing the Fayetteville Highway.
Navigating in towards the geocache, I turned in by the barbeque place. The name of the cache was pass the barbeque. And I did. Soon I was as close as the Jeep could get me to the cache. I waited for a bit of a heavy shower to pass. The GPS began averageing over and over, becoming more and more accurate about the location of the cache. Stepping out of the Jeep with the GPS in hand as the shower let up, I noted that the 100 foot proximity alarm went off. Getting close now !
The geocache was a .30 calliber ammunition can and it was full of geoswag. The log book was in a ziplock baggie and was clean and dry. Geocachers from all over the United States had visited the cache. The log book was a good read by it's self. Spreading the swag out inside the jeep so I could sign the log in the dry, I found a rare thing. A PATHTAG, loose in the wild. At first I couldn't believe my eyes ! But there it was. Pathtags are highly sought after trading coins that usually are not found loose in the wild !
Though we had only time for one geocache at VanBuren, it was a sure nuff' deuzzie' !
The PathTag belonged to a Retired Army Airborne Ranger that was Artic trained. The PathTag wasn't logged in the log book. It had just simply been dropped in the cache amongst the geoswag. Later I talked to a couple of the cachers that had been there just before me. Somehow they had overlooked the articabn pathtag.

You have a wonderful gift for writing. That was a great story. Have you ever thought about blogging? I know I'd be a regular guest.
Thanks for sharing your experience. On our recent trip to the Talimena Scenic Drive I was fortunate enough to find a pathtag in the "Panorama" cache. It was one of four signature items I was able to collect on our trip. It was great! I can't wait until the next installment of "Mountainborn & Buthcherknife's Adventures" or is it "Butcherknife & Mountainborn's?"

I wish I had a GPsr that would WAAS enable. You just have to love Magellan. LOL.

Really ? I thought all GPSr's might do that. Just checked and it says that it is averaging the available satellites. Then it shows the percentage of accuracy. The longer it averages, the better the percentage ?
I am still using the magellan, an older Magellan Gold, no longer made. My new Garmin Colorado is still in the box.

I wish I had a GPsr that would WAAS enable. You just have to love Magellan. LOL.

Really ? I thought all GPSr's might do that. Just checked and it says that it is averaging the available satellites. Then it shows the percentage of accuracy. The longer it averages, the better the percentage ?
I am still using the magellan, an older Magellan Gold, no longer made. My new Garmin Colorado is still in the box.

Ours is an eXplorist. It was made before they moved the WAAS satellite last year and can't find it. So the accuracy is never better than 11ft at best. Oddly enough, it still points straight to most caches. Why aren't you using the Colorado?